Feminist and Anti-caste Activism in the Bodhgaya Land Movement of Rural Bihar: “We Achieved Great Feats!” (1)

By: Indulata Prasad

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Synopsis: Feminist and Anti-caste Activism in the Bodhgaya Land Movement of Rural Bihar examines the long-term social, spatial, and material impacts of the Bodhgaya Land Movement (BGLM) of the 1970s and 1980s on its participants and beneficiaries. This book presents an ethnography and oral history of radical feminist and anti-caste activism based on interviews with the urban, educated Vahini activists who instigated the movement and oral narratives of the rural Bhuiyan Dalit women and men who led the protests. It also analyses the maps drawn by formerly enslaved Dalit laborers to document the social changes that resulted, as well as those that failed to materialize, from the land movement. In doing so, this book theorizes the multiple oppressions and forms of resistance with which these activists engaged to bring forth their rich experiences and analyses of social conditions in Bihar. By centering caste and gender within its examination of the social movement, this book makes multiple contributions to feminist scholarship that will be of use to social scientists and advanced undergraduate and graduate students in Gender Studies, Asian Studies and other interdisciplinary fields.